Adolf Berman
Adolf Abraham Berman ( Hebrew אדולף אברהם ברמן, also Avraham Berman ; * October 17, 1906 in Warsaw , at the time in the Russian Empire ; † February 3, 1978 in Tel Aviv , Israel ) was a Polish- Israeli politician and activist.
Life
Berman attended Warsaw University , where he received his PhD in philosophy . During his student days he joined the Marxist - Zionist organization Poalei Zion and published two magazines, one in Polish and one in Yiddish .
During the Second World War he was part of the leadership of the Jewish underground in the Warsaw Ghetto and was a member of the Presidium of the National Committee. He also acted as general secretary of the underground organization Żegota , whose aim was to save Jews from the Holocaust , and the children's aid organization Tsentum in Warsaw.
After the war he became a member of the Sejm and in 1947 chairman of the Central Committee of Polish Jews. Berman was forced to resign as chairman in April 1949 because he was a Zionist. In 1950 he went to Israel, where he joined the Mapam socialist party . He was elected to the Knesset after the 1951 elections, but left the Mapam on February 20, 1952 and formed the Left Party with the Arab Rostam Bastuni and Moshe Sneh . On November 1, 1954, Berman joined the Communist Party of Israel ( Maki ) and became a member of its Central Committee. After the Knesset elections in 1955, he lost his seat in parliament.
In 1961, Berman testified at the trial against Adolf Eichmann in Israel. He showed the court a pair of children's shoes that he had picked up in the fields of Treblinka . He was a member of the Presidium of the World Organization of Jewish Partisans and former prisoners of the Nazis.
Berman was married to Barbara Tamkin-Bermanowa; his older brother Jakub was considered Stalin's right-hand man in Poland.
Web links
- Avraham Berman on the Knesset website
- Berman, Adolf Abraham in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Berman, Adolf |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Berman, Adolf Abraham (full name); Berman, Avraham |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish-Israeli politician and activist, member of the Sejm |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 17, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Warsaw , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd February 1978 |
| Place of death | Tel Aviv , Israel |